Portsmouth boss weighs up playing Southend clash - despite losing key men to Scotland and Republic of Ireland call-ups

Kenny Jackett is weighing up playing Southend next week - despite losing three players to international call-ups.
Pompey boss Kenny JackettPompey boss Kenny Jackett
Pompey boss Kenny Jackett

The Pompey boss may opt to go ahead with the clash against the Shrimpers a week on Saturday to guard against a fixture pile-up.

The Blues are without Craig MacGillivray and Ross McCrorie after a senior Scotland and under -21 call-up respectively, while Ronan Curtis has been named in the Republic of Ireland squad.

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Jackett has to weigh up whether he can still has enough options at his disposal for the trio not to drastically weaken his squad again the strugglers.

If the game was to take place it would likely mean just a second league and fifth senior start for Alex Bass.

MacGillivray and Curtis have started every game this term with a suspension and wait to return to the side meaning McCrorie has picked up three full outings.

Jackett is expecting a decision to be made quickly.

He said: ‘As it stands we have Ronan Curtis, Craig MaGillivray and Ross McCrorie all called up.

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‘We’ll just consider our options over the next couple of days as to whether we call the game off or not.

‘It’s exactly what I’ll sum up (his available players) in the next two days.

‘We have up until five days, so it’s something we need to do a bit of planning and talking about when I speak to the powers that be about how our fixtures look and what we can fit in.

‘There’s a couple to arrange and a bit of planning to do, so we’ll see in the next couple of days as to whether we call Southend off or not.’

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Another option for Pompey would be to move forward a mid-week fixture on their schedule, with the EFL Trophy meeting with Norwich under-21s in November mooted as a possible option to dilute the intensity of their fixture list.

Jackett added: ‘It’s an unusual one with the game being called off for the Victorious Festival so early in the season.

‘There’s the potential for the Southend game to be called off and the weekend after we were due to play Bury.

‘Mark (Catlin) has mentioned is there anything we can do to help that situation?

‘We have one game to rearrange, so if there’s a mid-week game we can bring forward it will help our distribution of games and fill a Saturday.’

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